Eden Machine Helps Matsushita AVC Cut Prototyping Time, Improve Model Quality - Objet - #1

Text version of the page

At a Glance Company: Matsushita AVC Networks Company, one of 14 business domain companies of Matsushita (Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.) Location: Osaka, Japan Industry: Manufacturer and marketer of digital audio-visual products – TVs, video cameras and more Challenges • An existing optical molding-based prototyping was considered not fast enough to support the very short development cycles demanded by the Digital AV market. Solution Computer-aided prototyping using Objet’s Eden260 3D Printing System Results • Significantly faster model making • Smoother curves • Near-elimination of post molding polishing • Models that more closely resemble targets Matsushita AVC Networks Company, one of the business domain companies of Matsushita (Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.), operates in a particularly fast-moving market – digital audio-visual products. Competition for consumer spending on TVs, video cameras, movie cameras, and other AV products is fierce, with frequent new product introductions. This means that development cycles are extremely short. The Production Engineering Center is responsible for fabrication for the company. It has contributed a great deal to the acceleration of new product introductions to the market by providing the product development departments with a wide range of prototypes. However, it is under constant pressure to support ever-shorter timeframes. In the standard product development process, which moves from concept through design and prototyping to premass production changes, prototyping is a vital, but time-consuming step. This means that reducing the time needed for prototyping can significantly reduce time to market. Growing into new needs The optical molding machine that had been installed in the fabrication center in 2001 played a principal role in Matsushita AVC’s prototyping, enabling what was then the shortest possible turnaround time for models. The Production Engineering Center established a development routine in which it received the data for a specific model in the evening and delivered the prototype the following afternoon. However, with the increasing prevalence of vertical product development and simultaneous worldwide launches, the team found it needed to speed up product development even more. Diverse prototyping capabilities Challenged to find the best and quickest way to deliver numerous consumer products, the Production Engineering Center looked for a solution that could offer diverse protot ype fabrication capabilities. In line with the growing popularity of 3D design and prototyping, the following capabilities were identified as most urgent: • Enhanced speed - to enable the team to reduce turnaround from one day to hours Eden Machine Helps Matsushita AVC Cut Prototyping Time, Improve Model Quality “The fact that the Eden delivers highly accurate models is very important to us” Motoyoshi Tsujino, Technical Specialist Production Engineering Center Case Study